The Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas in an interview he gave on Tuesday, 4 July, 2017, on Alpha 989 to journalists Dimos Verykios and Spyros Lamprou stated, among other things:
About yesterday’s incident with the Turkish vessel:
I am not particularly worried. As everybody knows from the press release of the Coast Guard, there was information that a ship under Turkish flag sailing in Greek territorial waters carried an illegal cargo. It was asked to stop and be controlled, it did not stop, all the procedures provided for under the Law and control practices were followed, it did not respond again. We reached the final measure, which is warning shots, it did not respond again. Then, it passed onto Turkish territorial waters.
The Coast Guard informed the Turkish authorities and despite the fact that the Greek vessel had the right to pursue this ship for not responding to the request although it was sailing in Greek territorial waters, it did not pursue it. So, it was not involved in an action which would be considered as provocative. But there was a strong communication game which is not related to the incident itself, but to rhetoric of tense which neither Greece nor Turkey need at this period when serious talks are being conducted about the Cyprus issue.
In the effort to combat drug trafficking, Interpol and a number of other agencies participate as well. They cooperate with each other and there are also international treaties on this matter.
In this case, there is a particular incident. We managed it in this manner. I think that Turkey too should respond to the global effort which aims to stop this trade of death, the trafficking of narcotics, if this ship carried narcotics. However, it should have stopped in order to be inspected.
About the political developments:
I believe that for the first time there is a visible way for the country to come out of the crisis. When I say that it can come out of the crisis, I mean that it will stop being supervised as of the summer of 2018. The fact that it will not be supervised any more does not necessarily mean that the crisis is over. A number of other kind of measures and policies is required, which will regard the economy and the social policy as well as the redistributive procedures of the Product and this will be demonstrated by an increase of the GDP, but first and foremost, a protection measure that should be taken is combating unemployment. These are the basics. We are working on many levels towards this direction.
As far as yesterday’s discussion in the Parliament is concerned, on the part of the Opposition a chance was missed, for us to have a serious discussion about the economy and express criticism as well as remarks and proposals. I would like us to focus on matters that regard growth, manners and forms of growth that Greece can achieve and their connection to the European developments.
A lot of work is required in the field of productive restructure and in social policies. Unemployment decreases if job posts are created and job posts are created when there are investments either foreign or national investments which will motivate the social capital.
